JLX: Fair Play
by Xodarap
Summary: Xander is kidnapped by The Initiative and experimented on with demon DNA, altering his mind. He escapes and realizes that his friends all think that he's dead. To protect them he flees Sunnydale, now he needs to find a way to return and help his friends without letting them or the Initiative know that he's alive. With some help from his new abilities and a new friend, he...


**Justice League Xander:**

**Fair Play**

By Paradox761

Disclaimer: Me no own, you no sue.

Spoilers: "Primeval" (BtVS)

Summary: Xander is kidnapped by The Initiative and experimented on with demon DNA, altering his mind. He escapes and realizes that his friends all think that he's dead. To protect them he flees Sunnydale, now he needs to find a way to return and help his friends without letting them or the Initiative know that he's alive. With some help from his new abilities and a new friend, he assumes the identity of an old hero and continues the fight against evil.

888888888888

1989

Xander was eight years old. It was a Sunday afternoon. Sunday in the Harris household meant football, and football meant that Xander's father had a legitimate excuse to get drunk and rowdy. At least, that's the way he saw it. Tony Harris was an alcoholic, so he never really needed a reason to get drunk. The game was just a distraction while he slowly killed his brain cells. Xander appreciated Sundays because his father was usually too otherwise occupied to yell at him. After football they would all eat dinner together, and Xander got to pretend that he had a normal family. At least for one day a week.

Tony was in his recliner, watching the Raiders lose and muttering to himself, while on the other side of the living room Xander was lying on the floor across from his friend Jesse, a checkerboard between them. He was keeping one eye on the checkers and the other on his father, making sure that his mutterings weren't turning into grumblings. He moved one of his pieces and Jesse smiled. "Got you now," he friend said. He jumped three of Xander's pieces, landing on the back row of the board. "King me, chump," Jesse said, a triumphant smile on his face.

Xander frowned. "Hey, no fair! I wasn't paying attention!"

"Not my fault," Jesse said, still grinning.

"Come on, let's start over."

"No way!"

"But that's not fair, I was distracted!"

"Xander!" Tony Harris bellowed. "What are you bitching about now?!"

Xander gulped nervously. Jesse looked at his friend apologetically, even though he hadn't really done anything wrong. "Nothing, Dad," Xander answered. "Sorry." If he was lucky that would be the end of it. But even at that young an age, Xander knew that luck was rarely on his side.

"Come here a minute," his father said. Xander knew that he wouldn't hit him in front of Jesse, but he could still embarrass him. The two friends looked at each other for a moment, then Jesse reached down and swept the pieces off the board and started setting them up again. Xander stood up and walked over to where his father sat.

"Yeah, Dad?"

"Son, life isn't fair, and the sooner you learn that the happier you'll be. Pissing and whining about it like a little girl isn't going to change shit." And with that pearl of wisdom, he turned back to the TV.

He should have just said 'Yes, Sir' and walked away, that would have been the end of it. But something inside of him just couldn't accept that. It was that same feeling that resided in all young people, too young for the world to have beaten it out of them yet. That sense that life should be fair, even if it wasn't. The belief that there was an inherent goodness in the world. It was hope. Xander may have been young, but he knew that one day he would be out from under his parents and that his life would begin. He had hope, and he couldn't let his father crush it. He wouldn't.

"But why can't it be fair?" His father turned and looked at him, surprised that he was still standing there. Jesse's head shot up too, fear in his eyes. "I mean, it should be. If people do something about it, then maybe it can be fair."

Tony Harris laughed. It was a bitter, humorless sound. "You can spend your whole life chasing after what should be, Xander. But it doesn't make a lick of fucking difference in the end. The world pisses on all of us. The best you can do is hold up an umbrella." He turned back to the TV and took a long pull from his beer, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Xander felt like it would have been a bad idea to push the issue, and something in his father's tone made him not want to. It wasn't the anger, or the bitterness. It was a sadness of a lifetime of broken dreams and broken spirits. Xander made himself a promise that day, that he would never become like his father. He would never give up hope, never stop believing that life can be better and the world can be fair, if the people in it can just make it that way.

888888888888

2000

The first thought that floated to the surface of Xander's mind as he regained consciousness was that his head felt like it was about to split in half. The second thought was the realization that he couldn't move. He was on his back, and there was a blinding white light coming from somewhere above him. When he tried to lift his limbs he could tell that he was strapped down. After a few moments he heard voices.

"Subject 43 is a human male, 19 years of age. He is more or less of average height and weight for his age, and is in good health and physical shape, which should make him perfect for our experiment. Any physical changes that he might undergo should be readily evident."

Another voice spoke. "But it isn't his body that we're concerned with here, it's his brain."

"His IQ is average as well. Any changes to that one way or the other should be easy enough to confirm. But what I am more interested in are any possible side effects to the gene therapy. Providing our soldiers with enhanced intelligence won't do them any good if it also comes with physical deformities that prevent them from doing their jobs."

"How will we proceed?"

"The subject will remain sedated the majority of the time. He'll receive twice daily injections and be tested regularly to determine if there is any cognitive development. We'll do weekly brain scans as well as regular physical exams to monitor him for any changes. If the therapy proves to be successful, we'll then start trials with the soldiers, and Subject 43 will be…disposed of."

"But Professor Walsh, why this subject? He fits the criteria for the experiment, but he is also friends with the slayer. Isn't that an unnecessary risk?"

"Not at all, because the slayer will never find out. We've chosen this subject because of his relationship to the slayer and her group. It's part of our plan for dealing with that particular…threat."

"Threat?"

"A group of civilians, operating with an unknown agenda in our back yard, it can't be tolerated. The slayer is too much of a variable. We need to eliminate any threat to our mission, no matter where it may come from. The plan we have in place is much less risky than a full assault. We'll start by demoralizing the group, driving a wedge between them. As for the slayer herself, she'll be dealt with when the time is right.

"Are there any further questions?" No one else said anything. "Good, then we can begin immediately."

888888888888

The first month or so of Xander's captivity was a semi-conscious haze. He was kept sedated most of the time. Sometimes he was conscious enough to hear voices but not move. Sometimes he could see and feel. He remembered the injections, which were quite painful, at the base of his brainstem. He remembered a battery of tests, physical and mental. They would sit him up and ask him questions sometimes. He was always still extremely groggy from whatever sedative they were keeping him on, too groggy to understand fully what was happening. The sessions always felt dreamlike and surreal. They would show him complex mathematical equations, which he somehow understood and could solve with ease. Sometimes they sat him in front of a screen that would flash through the pages of a textbook, physics or advanced mathematics usually, but other subjects as well. Then they would test him on what was in the book. He remembered, and he understood what it meant.

Sometime around two months into his imprisonment, through the haze of his constantly medicated state, he began piecing together what was happening to him. He comprehended more and more of what was happening around him. He was either building up a tolerance to the sedative, or his enhanced brain was simply working better even in its half-conscious state and allowing him to understand more. His captors it seemed didn't prepare for that contingency. They didn't treat him with any greater precautions as his brain power increased. Xander began planning his escape.

He calculated his best odds for success would be to try during one of the marathon download sessions as he came to think of them, when he would be strapped to a chair and seated in front of a monitor, flashing through the pages of some text book. He would be alone in the room, save for a single guard. His arms strapped down but no other restraints. He flexed his arms as they strapped him in, to give him enough slack to get out of his bindings. He waited until it was only himself and the guard, who appeared to be bored and easily distracted. He began to feign distress, trashing around and acting like he was in pain. When the guard came closer to investigate, Xander lashed out with a foot and caught him across the temple, knocking him out cold. He quickly pulled his arms free from the restraints and traded clothes with the unconscious guard. Once he was dressed again, he placed the guard in the chair and strapped him in. Then he ducked out into the hallway and made his way down the corridor as nonchalantly as possible.

He passed a few people in the corridors as he made his way through the underground base, none of them batted an eye. He had studied his captors, how they moved, how they behaved. He mimicked their body language as he walked, that military swagger mixed with boredom and frustration from performing a tedious job, like guard duty. It didn't take him long to find what he needed, an empty room with a computer in it. He ducked inside and locked the door behind him. Accessing the Initiative's system wasn't difficult, and it didn't take him long to find what he was looking for. The reports on Subject 43. They were injecting him with a gene therapy derived from a creature that they were calling a Pygmy demon. Six inches tall, lived under children's beds and bit their toes off at night, nasty little bugger from all accounts. The idea was that for this creature to exhibit the level of intelligence that it did with a brain so small, its brain chemistry must be highly efficient, and so by applying that to a human sized brain, the result would be accelerated cognition, memorization, comprehension, everything. From the reports it looks like the therapy was working well, as Xander could attest to himself. His brain was operating on a different level. Complex concepts were understood completely in seconds, he could remember with clarity and detail everything that he was ever exposed to, and cognition was off the chart. He wasn't just smarter, his brain worked differently now. It processed information at amazing speed, made connections that let him make leaps in logic that most people would find impossible. By analyzing probabilities, he could actually predict how events would unfold. And right now, he needed that ability most of all, to predict what the Initiative would do to his friends.

He pulled up everything that he could find on Buffy and the others and scrolled through it quickly, absorbing all of the information and processing it in seconds. They were running surveillance on everyone in the group, keeping track of their routines and habits, looking for weaknesses. They were severely underestimating them all, Xander thought. They knew very little about magic and next to nothing about slayers, and surprisingly they seemed to be doing very little to correct either of those things. Right now they were concentrating on demoralizing them and working to separate them, there weren't any immediate plans to do anything harmful to any of them. He read further and found an entry from after his kidnapping, and he stopped scrolling. They thought he was dead. His parents had had him declared dead as soon as they were able to they could collect on an insurance policy they had on him. According to the Initiative's report, Buffy and the others assumed that he had been attacked and was dead. The report said that the emotional blow of this alone appeared to be enough to send the group into a tailspin.

Xander felt anger welling inside of him. He wanted to go to them and tell them that he was alive, tell them everything that had happened. But if he did that, he knew the Initiative would have no choice but to escalate their strategy with the group. They would be exposed for what they were and they would have no choice but to take aggressive action. Xander believed in Buffy, more than any other person that he knew, but he didn't think that she could take on the entire Army. He calculated the probability of success for several courses of action, and decided that what he needed to do was stay dead. He needed to leave Sunnydale, regroup, then return when he had a better way to help them. How exactly that would be, he didn't know yet. But he trusted his new brain to think of something. The Initiative had created a monster, and it was going to come back and destroy its maker. Xander brought up a map of the complex and plotted the most efficient escape route. As he stood and headed for the door, he heard an alarm sound. He had to hurry.

888888888888

Six months later…

Sloane Industries

Nanotechnology Lab

Metropolis

It was half passed midnight and Xander was alone in the lab, which was just the way he liked it. It gave him time to work on his personal projects. He had been working at Sloane for a few months now and already he had earned a reputation as a bit of a wunderkind, making several breakthroughs on some of their biggest projects. It garnered him the leeway that he needed to pursue the real reason that he was there. He knew that to protect his friends, he had to disappear, which meant that he had to get as far away from Sunnydale as possible, to make sure that no one he knew could discover that he was still alive. But his ultimate goal was still to return to Sunnydale, to reveal the truth about the Initiative and help his friends take them down. To do that he would need money, and resources. He created a false identity, Alexander Rosen, and with it a phony education record and work history to get his foot in the door. Sloane Industries seemed like a natural choice for his needs, the leading technology company in the fields of nanotechnology and robotics. His plan was close to fruition now, just a few more bugs to work out and he would be ready.

Lost in thought as he was, Xander didn't realize that someone else had entered the lab until the other man spoke. "Working late?"

Startled, Xander whirled around, nearly dropping the device that he had been working on. When he saw who it was, he became even more surprised. "Mr. Sloane."

Terry Sloane was still a well-built man, in exceptional shape for a seventy-five year old. He had been an Olympic athlete in his youth, Xander knew. As well as a gifted martial artist, with a genius level intellect and a brilliant businessman. He had made his first million by the time he was twenty. He always managed to stay on the cutting edge, creating companies in new industries, staying at the forefront of technology. His goal, he always said, was not just to make money, but to build a better future for all humankind. From another CEO it might have sounded like claptrap, but from Sloane, it was real. Xander looked up to him greatly, he was one of the main reasons that he wanted to work at Sloane Industries. But in all his months with the company, this was the first time he had had the pleasure of a face to face meeting. And the circumstances were hardly ideal.

"Dr. Rosen, isn't it?" Sloane said, extending his hand.

"Yes," Xander answered, shaking his hand. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Sir."

"The pleasure is mine, young man. I've heard a great many things about you. My head of R&amp;D talks about you like you're the second coming," he said with a smile.

"That's very flattering, Sir. But I feel that I should point out that everything we've done here in the last few months has been very much of a group effort."

"And modest to boot," Sloane said, smiling again. "I bet the ladies are beating down your door." Xander just smiled. "So, what are you working on so late at night?"

"Oh, nothing important. Just a few ideas I had that I wanted to work out, nothing fully formed yet."

"Is that so?" Sloane responded. His gregarious tone seemed to be fading and Xander had the feeling that he was being given the once-over. "Why don't we sit down and have a little chat, since I'm not interrupting anything important."

"Of course," Xander said. He led the way over to the side of the lab where there was some desk space and a couple of chairs. The pair sat down.

"As I've said, you've turned quite a few heads in your short time here," Sloane said. "I decided to do some digging, to see exactly where this scientific phenom had come from. Would it surprise you to find out that no one at MIT has ever heard of Alexander Rosen?" Xander said nothing. "No, I suppose it wouldn't. Seeing as how he didn't exist until around five months ago. Don't get me wrong, it was a masterfully built house of cards, and would have stood up to most background checks. I unfortunately can't afford to be anything less than completely thorough, you never can be too careful these days." Sloane stared at Xander for a moment, gaging his reaction. He may have appeared stone-faced, but his brain was running through a thousand scenarios, calculating his best odds for extricating himself from the situation. "You may have noticed that I am here alone, with no security or police. That's because I've decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. You can't be a corporate spy, because any proprietary information that you could have stolen would pale in comparison to the breakthroughs that we've made thanks to your help. And you're certainly more than capable, so this false identity can't be hiding any lack of qualifications. So I have to ask. Who are you really? And why lie to us?"

Xander's brain analyzed every possible lie that he could tell. He took into account all the variables, all the possible outcomes, and he determined that the best odds lay with doing something completely unexpected. Telling the truth.

"Mr. Sloane, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to explain myself. It's a rather long and fantastic story, and I'd like to tell it to you. There may be parts of it that seem unbelievable, but I ask only that you hear me out."

The old man crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "All right," he said. "I'm listening."

"My name is Xander Harris, and I'm from a small town in California called Sunnydale." Xander proceeded to lay it all out for him. Growing up in Sunnydale, meeting the slayer and learning the truth about the things that go bump in the night. The Master, Angelus, Spike, Dru, the Mayor, Faith, vampires, demons, witches, magic, everything. And he ended by telling him about the Initiative, the secret government project that kidnapped him and experimented on him, increasing his intellect with demon DNA. Sloane sat and listened to the whole thing, not interrupting once. When he was finished, Xander felt drained, like he had laid his soul open. For a long moment Sloane just stared at him in silence. And then finally he spoke.

"Come with me," he said, standing up. Xander stood and followed him wordlessly out of the lab, down the hall and to the elevators. They entered the elevator where Sloane pushed the button for the top floor, which Xander knew contained only one thing. Sloane's office. The pair rode the elevator up in silence.

The elevator stopped and the doors parted. Sloane stepped off casually, his hands clasped behind his back as he walked. Xander followed. A short corridor led to a large open space, and Xander couldn't help but be impressed. It was elegant without being opulent. There were paintings on the walls, originals that Xander was sure were worth millions. The décor was formal, but warm and inviting. Dark wood furniture and a few well place area rugs. There was a large conference table at one end of the room. Xander knew that Sloane took all his meetings here, rarely leaving the office at all according to the water cooler talk. And he could see why. The space reminded him of a throne room. At the other end of the office where Sloane was slowly making his way, there was a large desk. He walked around and sat behind it, gesturing for Xander to take one of the chairs in front of it.

"Mr. Sloane, I know that what I've told you must seem impossible…"

"Oh, I believe every word you've said, son," the CEO replied nonchalantly. "You don't get to be as old as I am in this world without learning a few things. I've known about vampires and their like for a while now. As for the rest of it, I wouldn't put it past the government to create something like the Initiative, or for the people in power there to abuse that power. But more importantly Mr. Harris, I consider myself to be a rather good judge of character, and I don't think you're lying. For one thing, if you were you would have made up a far more believable story than that."

Xander nodded. "That's true."

"So, what does working here in our nanotechnology lab have to do with your problem? What are you really working on?"

Xander reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a metallic sphere, about the size of a baseball. It hovered out of his hand with a low hum. "I've been working on this. It occurred to me that though nanomachines are extremely useful, they're also very limited in their programming. They need to be preprogrammed with a simple set of instructions, and then they can only perform a simple task. But, If combined in a nanomachine colony of sorts, they can share processing power with each other, and the programming can be much more complex. And they can even be programmed to manufacture more of themselves, given the raw materials for it. A sphere like this contains billions of nanomachines, all operating with the same programming and controlled with another set of nanomachines functioning as a control interface."

"So, how are you controlling that one?"

The sphere fell back into his hand and Xander returned it to his pocket. He then reached up to his face, just above his eyebrows and pulled off what looked to be a layer of skin that reached down to his mouth. "This colony of nanomachines is the control interface. I can wear it on my face like a mask and control the other nanomachine colonies with voice commands, or silently with my eyes. They project a tiny heads up display onto my cornea and can track my eye movements. I can point and click with literally the blink of an eye."

"That's amazing. What can they do?"

"Surveillance for one. This colony can form a camera and transmit the image to the control interface so I can see what it's seeing in the cornea display. They can hover practically noiselessly, change their shape or color to blend in, the perfect recon drone. They can be used for communication, holographic projection, projectile and energy weapons, virtually anything. I was hoping to use them to help me bring down the Initiative. But, once I had what I needed I was going to share my findings. Sloane Industries can own this technology, all I want is enough to help me help my friends."

"I think that we can help each other. But first, I have a story that I would like to tell you as well. Do you see that painting over there?" he asked, gesturing toward the wall behind Xander and to his right. Xander turned and looked. It was rather large, maybe eight feet high by twelve feet across, and the bottom of it was only a few inches off the floor. The painting was of a group of costumed men and women seated around a table, a few of whom Xander recognized. Hawkman, Dr. Fate, a few others. The man at the end of the table wore a red costume with a green tunic over it, and a shield emblem with the words 'Fair Play' written across it. Mr. Terrific. "Do you recognize any of those people?" Sloane asked.

"Sure, that's the Justice Society of America," Xander answered. "They were a group of heroes that operated in the fifties and sixties. My dad used to tell me stories about them. They disbanded in the early seventies I believe, a lot of them just disappeared after that."

"The world was different," Sloane said. "I guess they just didn't feel…needed anymore."

"The world always needs heroes," Xander said. "Whether it knows it or not."

The old man laughed at that. "I knew there was a reason I liked you. Like I said, good judge of character." He reached under his desk and pushed a button. A moment later, Xander heard a noise behind him. When he turned, the painting of the JSA was rising against the wall on an unseen track, revealing behind it, a door. When he turned back the CEO was already rising from his desk and heading toward the door. "Come on, I want to show you something."

Xander stood and followed. He placed his palm on a panel next to the door, which scanned it, and then the door slid open. He stepped inside with Xander behind him. It was a corridor, brightly lit, and as they moved further in the door that led back to the office slid shut automatically and Xander could hear the painting sliding back into place. "I graduated from college when I was thirteen years old, so I know a little bit about being a wunderkind. I studied martial arts until I had mastered several different forms. I wanted to tune my mind and body as best I could, to achieve all there was to achieve. In 1950 I was twenty-five years old," Mr. Sloane spoke as he walked. "I had just won three gold medals in the '48 games. I was already an accomplished business leader in my community, I felt like I had done everything that I had set out to. There was nothing more. I fell into a deep depression, it felt like nothing mattered anymore. Then I met a woman who tried to commit suicide. I saved her life and I ended up helping her with her brother, getting him out of a gang that he was involved with. I realized that there was so much more purpose in life then just achieving academic and physical feats. I had thought that there was nothing left to do, and I realized how wrong I was. There was always more to do, people to help, wrongs to right. And I decided that as long as I could help, I would tilt back the scales that had been unfairly tilted, fight for the underdog and make sure that the fat cats of the world played fair."

They stepped around a corner into a large room, and Xander's jaw fell open. Before his eyes there was a collection, arranged in glass display cases. But it wasn't a collection of art, or priceless antiques like you would expect a man of Terry Sloane's stature to have. It was a personal museum dedicated to the JSA. There were costumes, weapons and other equipment on display, along with many items that Xander couldn't even identify the significance of. On the walls hung framed newspaper headlines featuring the deeds of the various members of the JSA, along with posters and more paintings and photographs. And at the center of the room there was a single costume display that stood out from the others. The form inside wore a red costume, with a green tunic with the words 'Fair Play' emblazoned on it. "You are…Mr. Terrific?" Xander asked.

"I was," Sloane answered. "A long time ago. I quit when the JSA disbanded. Decided that there were better ways that a man of my means could help other than running around in a silly outfit."

"But, you kept all this stuff?"

"I thought someone should. Time is a funny thing. When enough of it passes, it starts to feel like that past wasn't real at all. It didn't feel right, to let everything that we did just…disappear into the past. I thought the least I could do was…remember."

"Do you ever miss it? Being out there, in the thick of it?"

The old man laughed sadly. "Every day," he answered. "Let me show you something." He walked over to one corner of the room where another glass case held a costume that Xander didn't recognize. It was a black leather jacket, trimmed in red with the words 'Fair Play' on the sleeves. The pants and boots were black as well. "Back in the eighties, I thought about coming out of retirement. I wasn't as young as I used to be so I thought a new costume could help me stay safe. It's bulletproof, shock resistant, energy weapon resistant, even magic resistant."

"Really?"

"Dr. Fate did it for me. It's a powerful protection spell that guards the wearer against black magic and negative spells."

"It's impressive. So, how come you never went out in it?"

"I decided that I was being foolish, and that costumed heroics was a game for the young."

"Still, you kept it."

"I thought it might come in handy one day. Lately, I've been thinking that I should find some deserving young person, someone with character and integrity, someone who believes fair play, and give it to them. Someone who believes that the world still needs heroes." Xander turned and looked at him, mouth agape for the second time since entering this room. "What do you say?"

"Me?"

"Xander Harris probably can't singlehandedly take down the Initiative and save his friends, but maybe Mr. Terrific can."

"Mr. Sloane, I…I don't know what to say. Thank you just doesn't seem like enough."

"All I'm giving you is a name and a jacket, you have to do the hard stuff yourself. There is one more thing though. We need to come up with a better name for those toys of yours, something other than nanomachine colonies."

"How about…T-Spheres," Xander said. "What do you think?"

Sloane smiled. "I think the forces of evil in Sunnydale don't stand a chance."

888888888888

I stayed in Metropolis a little while longer, working on the T-Spheres to perfect their programming, and training with them. I changed the color of the control interface to match the costume and function as a better mask. I even programmed it to alter my features slightly as well as my voice, to function as a better disguise should I run into someone who knows me. I trained my body as well as my mind, martial arts, boxing, some self-defense styles. My accelerated learning ability applied to those techniques as well, though getting my body in good enough shape to use them effectively took a little longer. I went out a few times as Mr. Terrific, started making a name for myself around town. Mr. Sloane helped with that to, opened some doors for me and introduced me to people, made it clear to the superhero community at large that I was his chosen successor, and not just some guy stealing his shtick.

I was ready to go back to Sunnydale, but I was afraid of what I would find there. I had been gone for a long time, and I had no idea what the Initiative had been doing in the meantime. I just hoped that Buffy, Willow and Giles were okay. I hoped that they were able to move past my 'death' and get on with their lives, as much as it hurt that I couldn't tell them the truth and be a part of those lives anymore. I hoped that I could help them.

888888888888

Buffy and Willow walked slowly through one of Sunnydale's twelve cemeteries, Buffy with stake in hand. It had been a slow night, only two vamps total across four separate graveyards. The past few months had been slow in Sunnydale in regards to the undead. Buffy was glad of that, but it also made her nervous. Slowdowns usually meant that something big was building up. But it was a welcome break during a difficult period in her life, having just lost one of her best friends. She felt like her life was crumbling down around her and she was just scrambling to pick up the pieces.

"How are your classes going?" Willow asked.

"I've caught up in almost everything," Buffy said. The two of them had missed weeks of school after Xander disappeared, looking for him, and then finally grieving for him. "Except for psychology, I think Professor Walsh is going to fail me. I swear, that woman has a personal vendetta against me. Every time I try to speak up in class she seems to delight in ripping me apart."

"I'm sure it's just your imagination."

"What about you?"

"I'm doing fine. In school anyway, things with me and Oz are still a little…strained. I think that seeing how I reacted after…" she trailed off. Even months after Xander's death, she couldn't bring herself to say the words out loud. "I think it freaked him out. He just doesn't understand what Xander and I are…what we were to each other. I think he feels…threatened by it."

"Did he say that?" Buffy asked.

"Not in so many words. I know he's trying to be understanding, but…it's hard." Buffy just nodded. Unseen by either of them, a small metallic sphere floated high above them, watching.

"How has the slaying been?" Willow asked, changing the subject. "I know I haven't been around as much to help."

"It's okay, Wills," Buffy said. "It's been pretty slow lately, it's no big. The strangest thing I've come across in months is a bunch of guys in masks and army fatigues skulking through the woods."

"What's that about?"

"I don't know yet. Maybe they're just extreme paintballers." Willow chuckled at that and before long they were both laughing. It was something that Xander would have said, and it felt good to laugh.

They walked a little bit further until they reached their final destination for the night, and they stopped laughing. It was a grave, and the headstone read Alexander L. Harris, and below that a simple two word description. 'Beloved Friend'. They reached out and took each other's hands for support. Willow sniffed, trying to hold back the tears. "It isn't just that I miss him, it's like…a piece of me is missing. Everything is so much harder now. Just walking around my normal life feels like I'm walking through water."

Buffy squeezed her friend's hand. "I know what you mean. I didn't realize until he was gone, how important he was to my life. I just wish I would have told him that when I had the chance. I like to think that…"

Buffy stopped in mid-sentence and her head shot up. Her 'slaydar' as Xander used to call it was going nuts. She turned and started looking. Willow recognized the look on her face and started looking around as well. After a few seconds, they started coming out of the trees. Vampires. Six. Ten. Fifteen. Buffy stopped counting and started praying. It was an ambush. How could she have been so stupid, she cursed herself. Things had been so slow lately that she stopped mixing up her patrol routine, she started getting complacent. She got into the habit of visiting Xander's grave every night at the end of her patrol, and the vamps must have noticed. They set a trap. None of them said a word, they just advanced. Some were smiling, others just looked determined. They knew that some of their numbers would fall, but eventually they would overwhelm her and one of them would get close enough and…Buffy didn't want to think about it. She gripped her stake tightly and pushed Willow behind her. She was about to spring into action at the closest one when a high pitch whistle filled the night. Something flew through the air toward the vampires, too fast for her to see what it was, but before she knew it five of them disintegrated into dust. And then another whistle, and another three of them were gone. The remaining bloodsuckers started looking around, scared.

"What's going on?!"

"She has backup!"

"She can't!"

"There it goes again! What the hell is that thing?!"

Whatever they were, they slowed down and Buffy got a good look. They were metallic, disk shaped. And then right before her eyes they changed into spheres. There were three of them, floating between her and Willow and the vamps.

"They're called T-Spheres," a voice behind Buffy said. She whirled around and saw a man step out of the shadows. He wore a black leather jacket with red trim and his face was painted with a black letter T. "And they belong to me."

"And who the hell are you?!" one of the vampires demanded.

The mystery man stepped forward, past Buffy and Willow. The spheres started floating around him. "I am your death," he replied simply. For a moment, everyone just stared silently at each other. Then the man held his arm out and the spheres took off again toward the vampires, and the fight was on. The lead vampire ran at the man, fangs bared. The man responded with a right jab straight to the bloodsucker's face, breaking his nose. He howled in fury and swiped with his hand, trying to backhand the man across the face. He dodged the blow and grabbed the vamp's arm, using his momentum to slam him onto the ground. He then produced a wooden stake from his jacket and plunged it into the thing's chest, disintegrating it into ash.

Two more vamps attacked Buffy, her stake already out she started trading blows with them. A few well-placed kicks and the first one was down in seconds and his friend was soon to follow. Some of the other vamps ran and a few of them were dusted by the T-Spheres, which had turned back into disks and were slicing through the undeads' necks. One of the vamps managed to grab one of the spheres before it changed shape. "I got one!" he yelled. A moment later the sphere delivered an electric shock to the demon that would have killed an ordinary man, causing his muscles to lock up and he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. The sphere flew up again and the man in black plunged his stake into the vamp's chest before he could recover.

It was all over in a few minutes. "A couple of them took off into the woods," Willow said, pointing toward a wooded area directly behind the cemetery.

"I got it," the man said. One of the T-Spheres took off high into the air, giving him a bird's eye view of the area. He switched to night vision and almost instantly spotted the two vampires running through the woods. The T-Sphere targeted them, morphed into a disk and flew straight toward them. A second later it sliced through their necks, decapitating them and turning them to dust. "Taken care of," he said, turning his focus from his heads up display back to Buffy and Willow.

"Who are you?" Buffy asked.

"Didn't like the 'I am your death' line? Was it too much? It was probably too much." The girls just stared at him. "The name's Terrific. Mr. Terrific."

Again, they stared at him. "Really?" Buffy asked after a moment.

Terrific rolled his eyes. "Yes, really."

"Well, I appreciate the assist Mr. T…" Buffy paused as she realized what she just said. "But Sunnydale isn't exactly the best place to do the whole mask and cape thing. It's less supervillians and crime syndicates and more…"

"Demons from the bowels of hell, yes, I know. I appreciate your concern Buffy, but I know everything there is to know about Sunnydale."

"How do you know my name?"

"I know everything about you, too. I know about a lot of stuff. It's kind of my thing."

While Buffy was processing all of this, Willow was staring intently at the T-Spheres as the hovered around Mr. Terrific. "Where did you get those things? What are they made of? What can they do?"

"I made them, nanomachines, and anything I program them to do," Terrific answered.

"What do you want?" Buffy asked.

"I don't want anything. Look, I know that you have no reason to trust me, and I'm not asking you to right now. Just hear me out. There's something in this town moving against you, something much more dangerous than a bunch of vampires. You need to make sure that you know who you can trust. I can't talk about it here out in the open, anyone could be watching. But I'll be in touch. Stay safe."

The T-Spheres coalesced into one large disk and dropped down to just a few inches off the ground. Mr. Terrific stepped onto it and carried him up and over the tree line where he disappeared.

Buffy and Willow stared after him for a moment. "Who was that masked man?" Willow asked.

Buffy looked at her. "Really?" The redhead just shrugged her shoulders. "Come on, let's get out of here."

888888888888

After the fight in the cemetery Xander felt uneasy. He had stood on top of his own grave, watched his friends stand in front of it and grieve for him. He wanted so much to go to them, to let them know that he was alive and well, to assuage their grief. But he didn't know who was watching, and he didn't know what the Initiative would do if they knew they were exposed. He had to play things cautiously until he got the lay of the land again and was informed enough to devise a proper plan. That meant that his first task was recon.

It didn't take him long to find one of the hidden entrances to the Initiative's underground base and to use his T-Sphere's holographic projector to fool the door sensors and gain entry. He sent one of the spheres in ahead of him to find someone to scan, then he used the holographic projector again to create a hologram around himself to make himself appear as the technician that he had scanned. He was now free to move through the base. It was night, which meant that squads of soldiers were out, capturing demons and vampires and bringing them back to the base for study and experimentation. The base was a flurry of activity, soldiers coming and going, moving demons to and from holding cells, medical personal were tending to soldiers who came back injured. He had never seen the place in full operation like this. Apart from the day he escaped, the only part of the base that he had seen had been some labs and his holding cell. Seeing it now made him angry. These people barely knew what they were dealing with, yet they sought to control it, to manipulate it for their own ends. The level of ego at work there was staggering.

Xander moved deeper into the base and found some office space that was unoccupied. He found a computer and accessed the action reports. A few keyword searches lead him to what he was looking for, the reports on Buffy and the others. It looked like they were still content to keep watching them and demoralizing the group. As long as they didn't interfere directly then they weren't authorized to take any direct action against civilians. They were allowed some human trials for their experiments, a loophole that they had exploited by kidnapping him. The reports showed that after his 'death' the group's morale had dipped so low, they were simply not considered a high threat any longer. They did have an unknowing spy in their midst it seemed, Riley Finn. A soldier with the group posing as a student at UC Sunnydale, he was dating Buffy. They were using him without his knowledge to gather intel on the group. Something that he had overheard Buffy say earlier that night struck a chord with him, that Maggie Walsh seemed to have a personal vendetta against her. The reports showed that officially Buffy wasn't considered a threat, so why all the special attention? Xander decided to hack into Walsh's personal files and do some digging. Walsh had a son who was a soldier with the Initiative, he had been killed in one of their first skirmishes in Sunnydale. Psychological reports showed that she had taken his death hard, and threw herself with increased vigor into her work to deal with it. She had also developed a surrogate mother/son relationship with her teaching assistant, Riley Finn. Could that be it? She already lost one son to Sunnydale and now she saw Buffy as a threat to another? It seemed so petty considering the risks she was taking. How could someone with such an obvious mental instability be left in a position of authority over an operation like this?

But that was just the tip of the iceberg. When he dug further he discovered something called Project 314. The files were under another level of encryption, so Walsh was hiding them even from her superiors. And the more he read, the more he realized why. And the more he realized how unstable she really was. When he had read enough details on the project to make him want to be sick, he stood and stepped away from the computer. He felt appalled, not just by the arrogance, but by the lack of any kind of human decency. He was infuriated by what they had done to him, how he had been treated as nothing more than a lab animal, a specimen. But this, this was more than just infuriating, it was an affront to all of humanity. They had to be stopped. If his resolve was steely before, it was being tempered into something even stronger now.

He walked out of the office and at a brisk pace he made his way to room 314. He wasn't sure what he was going to do when he got there, but part of him just needed to see it. Needed to know that it was real. He hacked the keycard lock on the door with a T-Sphere and stepped inside the small lab, dropping his holographic camouflage as he entered. On the table at the center of the room lay Project 314. Part demon, part machine, and yes, part human. Her own son. She had created this abomination from the remains of her own dead son. As he looked down on him, he was horrified, but he couldn't help but feel empathetic as well. He was part demon himself now, a victim of the same megalomaniac playing god. This creature didn't ask to be what he was, he wasn't to blame. And yet, if he was ever awakened, the level of horror that he could unleash would be unspeakable. He was still contemplating what the right thing to do was when the door opened and Maggie Walsh stepped in. She closed the door behind her before she turned and saw him.

"Who are you?! What are you doing in here?!" she shouted. She turned and reached for an alarm control on the wall, but a T-Sphere beat her to it, and with a small electric charge it shorted out the alarm. When she turned and reached for the door, there was another sphere already there, conducting a charge to the handle. She jumped back when she touched it and got shocked.

"You're not going anywhere, Professor Walsh. You have a lot to answer for."

"How do you know my name? Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here?!"

Without even thinking, Xander flicked his eyes to the command on his heads up display to disable the camouflage on his mask and the voice modulator. In a second, the nanomachines that made up his mask changed color and moved out of position where they were changing his facial features, so the mask appeared to disappear and his normal face was exposed. For the moment he didn't care about hiding anymore, he wanted her to see his face, to see what she had done to him and the wrath that she had brought down on herself with her arrogance.

"You!" she hissed.

"Me," Xander confirmed.

"We assumed you were dead." Her eyes were darting around the room, looking for an escape route or a weapon of some kind. She was just trying to keep him talking until she found it. Xander of course could read all of this on her face.

"That's what I wanted you to think, so you would leave my friends alone."

"I have to admit, your disappearance did more damage to their group then I had anticipated. I suppose I should thank you for staying hidden from them."

"I was protecting them!" Xander yelled defensively. "If I told them the truth you would have come after them."

"I have worked too long to let a bunch of stupid kids ruin this project! You have no right…"

"Buffy has killed more demons than you've even seen! She's saved the world more times than you'll know! You want to talk about right, who gave you the right to play god? You have no idea what you're dealing with here! You come in here guns blazing and you think you can control real Evil with a capital E, when you've done nothing to try to understand it."

"There is a hostile force that is threatening humanity and we are fighting to defend people against it, that's all that we need to understand. Your group fights with fairy magic and pointed sticks, this is a sophisticated military operation with access to technology that you couldn't even image!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, I can imagine a lot now thanks to what you did to me. How are you going to try and justify that? How does kidnapping innocent civilians and experimenting on them defend anybody from anything?"

"You accuse us of not knowing anything about what we're fighting against, that's exactly what this project was put here for, to learn about these things. Not by reading what some primitive wrote in a book a thousand years ago, by using science. Yes, sometimes sacrifices have to be made, but it's for the greater good."

"Is that what you call this, what you did to your own son? A sacrifice?" he asked, motioning to the figure on the table between them. "What good could possibly come from this…monster that you've created? This abomination against human decency."

"Don't you DARE talk about him like that!" Walsh shouted, walking around the table and advancing toward Xander. "The only abomination is that a brave young man like him is dead, while your little group of luddites somehow survives spending night after night prancing through a warzone!"

Xander just stared at her for a moment, his hatred slowly turning to pity. "Is that what this is about? You feel responsible for his death and so you have to justify it somehow? Make it mean something."

"His sacrifice will mean something! He represents the ultimate advancement in technology, and he is going to turn the tide of this war in our favor, and he will be lauded as a hero for it! And I am not going to let anyone stop that from happening, not you and not your precious little slayer! You people are nothing more than a complication, and you can be easily removed. Once we…"

Whatever she was going to say next died in her throat, as a long boney spike suddenly protruded from her chest. Xander took a step back in shock, his face he imagined looked much like Walsh's, eyes wide, mouth agape. Blood trickled out of her mouth as she spoke one word before collapsing on the floor, dead. "Ad…Adam?"

Xander now found himself face to face with the very much awake creature that had been lying on the table. Adam. "Mommy," he said, looking down at Walsh. The bone spike that extended from an opening under his wrist retracted back into his arm. He turned and looked at Xander, cocking his head to the side slightly. "Subject 43," he said.

"You know who I am?"

"All of the Initiative's files have been downloaded into my memory. I've taken a special interest in the experiments that lead to my creation."

Xander again felt like he was going to be ill. The idea that the Initiative used him in part to create this thing horrified him. He could have done more before he escaped, he told himself. He could have damaged their computer system, deleted their research data, something, anything that could have put a stop to this before it started. But he had been so focused on escaping, on what had happened to him, he didn't think about the long term repercussions. His brain may be advanced, but he still suffered from the same emotions as any human. "Why did you kill her," he asked when he found his voice again.

Adam looked down at her again. "She assumed much. In a way, she made the same mistake with me as she did with you. She underestimated me. As I said, they downloaded all of their files into me, including the various ways they had devised to control me, or even destroy me should the need arise. I could not permit that to happen." He held his hands out in front of them, turning them over and looking at them as though seeing them for the first time. One cybernetic, the other demonic. Xander realized that he more than likely *was* seeing them for the first time. "I was able to gain access to my own activation program through the uplink."

"What are you going to do now that you're awake?" Xander asked, afraid of what the answer would be.

"I am a unique individual in this world, and I've been contemplating my existence in it ever since I became self-aware within my computerized brain. I came to the conclusion almost immediately that I am the superior life form. My mother wanted to use me to fight against the very demons that make up most of my flesh. To defend humanity, become its savior. I do not see that as an effective purpose for my life. I believe that I am meant for greater things. Humans and demons, fighting against each other, it's all so…inefficient. I can remake this world in my own image, and rule over it. Perhaps in a way, I will fulfill my mother's vision for me. I will become a savior of a sort."

"Adam, listen to me, please. You've broken your programming, you're no longer a slave to it. You don't have to be a slave to your darker impulses either, that's the demon part of you. You're still part human as well. You know right from wrong, you're capable of compassion, understanding, empathy. You can choose to be something more than just a…killing machine."

"Humans are weak. I am strong. I have become…more than the sum of my parts, as it were. Beyond human, beyond demon, I am something more. I should not be subject to primitive human morality."

"It isn't weak or primitive to believe that all living beings should have the right to live and be free."

"You don't have to share their fate. We are brothers, you and I. Products of the same feeble minds, overreaching their potential and trying to create something greater than themselves. You can join me. Together we can raise an army and conquer them. We will show them that they were right to fear us."

Any hope or pity that Xander had held toward this creature were replaced with a determination to stop him. He had free will, and he had made his choice. Nothing Xander said now was going to change it. "We are not brothers," he said. "Because no matter what was done to me, I will always be human. I will always be a protector and a defender, not because it is what I was made to be, because it's what I choose to be. I choose to rise above what was done to me, not to seek revenge against humanity because of it." With a flick of his eyes, the T-shaped mask returned to his face and his T-Spheres circled around him. "And I choose to fight you. Humanity is not weak, we will endure. And we will beat you."

"A regrettable choice," Adam said. "You could have been…so much more."

Adam raised his arms but before he could attack the T-Spheres flew at him. One delivered an electric shock, the strongest that it was capable of, which overloaded his electronics and left his cybernetic arm dead at his side. Another morphed into a blade and imbedded itself into demon cyborg's chest. And the third fired a series of energy bolts at his face and head. It was all a distraction, Xander knew that he had no hope of taking Adam on by himself. He needed to escape so he could warn the others. The attack bought him enough time to get around him and out the door. He ran, the T-Spheres close behind. He pulled an alarm on a wall on his way out of the complex, hoping that it would be enough warning that some of the personnel could get out. He didn't think Adam would attack now anyway, more than likely he would leave the base as well and setup his own base of operations. Someplace to raise his army.

As he was fleeing the premises, he remembered something that Terry Sloane had said to him before leaving Metropolis. He said that Xander Harris couldn't take down the Initiative, but maybe Mr. Terrific could. He realized now that not even Mr. Terrific could do it alone. This was going to take the entire Scooby gang.

888888888888

The morning after the ambush in the cemetery, Buffy and Willow were back in their dorm, back to their normal routine. Neither of them had classes until later that afternoon. Willow was sitting on her bed studying, and open book in her lap. Buffy was pacing, stressing out about how close she had come the night before to being killed. "I just can't believe I could have been so careless. Giles drilled that lesson into my head my first year in Sunnydale, don't become too predictable. If you have a routine, your enemies can learn it and set a trap. We both could have been killed."

"Buffy, relax. We weren't killed, that's the important thing. You've had a lot on your mind lately, we all have. Nobody can fault you for wanting to visit Xander's grave."

"That's not an excuse. If I make a mistake, people die."

"At least we got to meet Mr. Terrific. It's nice to know that we have an actual superhero in town, and one who knows about vampires and how to kill them. It will be good for you to have some help."

"I don't know. For all we know, this Mr. Terrific guy could have orchestrated that ambush so that he could show up and save the day. He could have some hidden agenda, we don't know if we can trust him."

"We don't have any reason not to trust him," Willow said. "I did some research last night on the web when we got back, this new Mr. Terrific showed up about a month ago in Metropolis, and he's on the level. They say that he's the handpicked successor to the original Mr. Terrific." Buffy looked at her with a quizzical expression. "You know, from the old Justice Society of America, back in the 50's." Buffy just shook her head. "Sometimes I forget that not everyone spent their childhood obsessed with superheroes the way Xander and I did. The point is, he's legit, and I think we can trust him. As to what he's doing here in Sunnydale, I don't know."

"He said there was something in town moving against me," Buffy said. "What is that supposed to mean? I am so over the whole 'mysterious stranger who saves the day and speaks in riddles' thing. Maybe he's not evil, but still, we need to be careful. We don't know what he wants."

Just then, a T-Sphere floated into the room through the open window. Buffy and Willow both watched it as it landed on Buffy's bed. "Speak of the devil," Willow muttered.

The T-Sphere then projected a life size hologram of Mr. Terrific, standing in front of them. "And he appears," he said with a wry smile. "That's just a figure of speech by the way, I'm not the devil. Just to be clear."

"What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk, things have just gone from bad to worse. I've already swept the room for listening devices and we're not being watched so it's safe."

"And who exactly would be planting listening devices in my dorm room?" Buffy asked.

"They're called the Initiative. It's a military operation, and they have an underground base under Sunnydale. It's the government's attempt to get in on the demon hunting business, and as usual when the government is involved, it's gone horribly wrong."

"Buffy, those military guys that you've been seeing on your patrols," Willow said. Buffy nodded. "They're killing vampires too?"

"That would be them," Terrific continued. "Only they're not killing what they find, they're capturing demons and vamps and taking them to their research facility. They're experimenting on them."

"What? Why?" Buffy asked.

"Theoretically to learn more about them, to better fight them. Practically, they're trying to weaponize them. They're in over their heads and they're playing with something that they don't understand, and predictably, it's exploded in their collective faces. The person who used to be in charge had some series mental problems, and some serious issues with you Buffy."

"Me? Why me, what did I do?"

"They see you as a threat. A variable that they can't control. So far they've mainly just been running surveillance on you and your group, but they're also trying to keep you demoralized, keep you out of their way. But Walsh started taking it personally, especially when you started dating Riley Finn."

"Wait, you're saying that Professor Walsh, my psychology professor, is in charge of a clandestine paramilitary demon-dissecting group. And she has a personal grudge against me because of my love life?"

"That's pretty much the size of it, yeah," Terrific answered.

There was a pause while Buffy and Willow let that sink in. "I believe it," Willow said.

"Yeah," Buffy added, begrudgingly.

"Wait, you said that she used to be in charge," Willow said. "Is she not in charge anymore?"

"She's dead."

Buffy stepped forward like she was going to attack. "What did you do?!"

"Okay, first, I didn't do anything. She was killed by one of her own creations, there wasn't anything that I could do to stop it. That's what I meant when I said things have gone from bad to worse, this creation is unlike anything that you've faced before. And secondly, do you realize how silly you look threatening a hologram?"

"Is Riley involved with these people?" Willow asked.

"Yes, but he doesn't know anything about their plans regarding you guys. He doesn't even know that Buffy is the slayer. Walsh was using him as an unknowing spy to get information on you and your habits."

"So what about this creation, the one that killed Walsh, what is it?"

"He calls himself Adam. I don't know if that was his human name or if it's a biblical reference. Walsh and I didn't get around to discussing her opinions on theology before he woke up and impaled her. He's part human, part demon, and part machine. He's like Robo-Franken-Demon, and he has his sights set on remaking the world in his image, and then conquering it. He escaped last night after he killed Walsh."

"Did you say this thing is part human?" Buffy asked.

"They're experimenting on people too, trying to create better soldiers. I was one of those experiments before I escaped," Terrific said. He paused, thinking about what he was going to say next. He had to be careful how he played this. "That's when I met your friend Xander. They took him as part of their plan to sabotage your group. He told me about you all, about what you've been doing here for the last four years. So as soon as I was able I came back here to help."

Willow practically leapt from her bed. "What?! What did they do to Xander, is he…"

"I don't know. I don't think they did anything with him, he never said anything to me about them experimenting on him. I don't know if he's still there or not, it's been months since I escaped." He paused, looking thoughtful. "I'm sorry that I couldn't take him with me, there wasn't time."

Buffy looked to be in shock. "I can't believe that somebody would do something like that. Somebody…human. Xander never did anything to anyone, he never hurt anyone, why would they…how could…" She looked to be on the verge of breaking down but she held it together. Willow went to her and they hugged.

"He could still be alive," Willow said in a small voice. Buffy just nodded, still not trusting herself to speak yet.

After a moment, Buffy looked up at Mr. Terrific. "What do we do?" she asked. "How do we stop them?"

"We work together."

888888888888

The next few weeks for me were both wonderful, and terrifying. Wonderful because I was with my friends again, working together to take down the latest big bad. Sometimes I could even close my eyes and pretend like nothing had changed. It was terrifying as well of course because what we were up against was unlike anything we had ever faced before, and there were times when I wasn't sure if we were going to make it through alive. And of course, there was the added stress of the tremendous guilt I was feeling for lying to my friends, for letting them think that I was dead for all this time. I took a chance by telling them part of the truth, that I had been kidnapped by the Initiative. I wanted to give them hope, to take away some of their pain, but at the time it just felt like I was twisting the knife. I've thought about telling them the truth now. Now that Adam is loose the Initiative has bigger fish to fry than us. But it still felt like a risk. They may not believe me if they find out that I've been lying to them. They would feel…betrayed. I couldn't bring myself to hurt them anymore. When all of this was over, I would have a decision to make then.

Riley was brought fully into the fold shortly after my meeting with Buffy and Willow in the dorm, at Buffy's insistence. He was shocked at first of course, learning about what Buffy was, learning the truth about what the Initiative was, that Walsh was dead and that she had released a monstrosity on the world that we now had to stop. It was a lot to absorb at once, but after a few days he came around. He sided with Buffy, and he agreed to stay with the Initiative to act as our man inside, to let us know what was going on. He must really love her, to turn his back on everything that he has ever been taught to support her. I don't know if she can see that, I have a feeling that she might break his heart in the end. But speaking from experience, Buffy has a way of breaking your heart that makes you love her even more and never want to leave her side.

Adam didn't waste any time raising his army once he escaped. It wasn't long before word spread back to us that every heavy hitter in town was working for him now, and every low level demon or vamp was clambering to join up as well, lest they be rolled over when Adam finally made his move. It wasn't looking good for the whitehats. That's when Spike showed up. The Initiative had put a behavior modification chip in his head to keep him from harming humans, one of their experiments to weaponize vampires. He came under the guise of seeking protection, but it didn't take long for me to figure out what he was really up to. Trying to separate Buffy from the others, sow seeds of doubt. When confronted he admitted that he was working for Adam. The franken-demon had promised to remove the chip if the vampire did his bidding. The plan was to fill the Initiative's holding cells with demons, then release them and lure Buffy in to kill them, giving Adam a supply of body parts to build his hybrid army. Adam wasn't afraid of Buffy, he didn't see her as a threat to him. It was time to show him how wrong he was.

Willow had a plan, an enjoining spell that would imbue Buffy with the best qualities of her friends. Willow's magic, Giles' intellect, Riley's military training. And when during our standard patrols we started noticing vampires and demons purposely getting themselves captured by the Initiative, we knew that Adam's endgame was coming soon. Riley was our inside man, he would tip us off when it started to go down, then we would go in. If it worked, then God help anyone or anything standing in Buffy's way.

"Okay, five card stud, jacks are wild," Riley said, dealing the cards to Giles and Mr. Terrific. The three of them were sitting around Giles' kitchen table. The whole group had been gathered for more research and planning for the upcoming battle that they knew was coming. All the preparations had been made now, there wasn't much more to do other than wait. Buffy and Willow left to do a quick patrol. Even those had been uneventful lately. The calm before the storm.

"I'm not sure that this is a good idea," Giles said, picking up his cards. "Playing cards with someone who can count cards and calculate the odds of any hand in the blink of an eye."

"If we were playing for real money I might agree with you," Riley said, looking at his own hand.

"Hey, I recommended a quick D&amp;D campaign, but Cornfed here overruled me," Mr. Terrific said.

"Please stop calling me that," Riley said with only mild annoyance. "How many cards?"

"Two," Terrific answered.

"Mr. Giles?"

"Three," the watcher answered, passing three of his cards across the table.

"And the dealer takes one," Riley said after dealing new cards to the others. "One of these days, if we live through this, I'm going to find out who you are and create an embarrassing nickname for you."

"For a guy who already calls himself Mr. Terrific, that might be difficult," Terrific answered. "And we will live through this Cornfed, have some faith. This group has faced down worse odds and come out on top."

"Maybe," Riley said. "It's still hard to believe sometimes, that Professor Walsh could have been so…misguided. I looked up to her. To think that she was spying on me, that she had a behavior modification chip implanted in my chest, I still can't believe it."

"She was…a very disturbed woman," Terrific said diplomatically.

"Thank you again Mr. Terrific, for finding that chip and removing it."

"No problem. You wouldn't be much good to us if the Initiative still had you under control."

"That they were experimenting with humans, on their own soldiers, kidnapping civilians like your friend Xander, what they were doing right under our noses, it makes me so angry. And now Forrest is dead because of it…"

"We will put an end to it," Giles said. "One way or another. Mr. Terrific is right about one thing, this group has been through a lot. And for a group of teenagers they can be surprisingly resilient." He paused. "Especially Xander," he said, taking off his glasses and polishing them.

"Buffy talks about him a lot," Riley said. "I wish I could have met him."

"I've been thinking about him a lot lately myself," Giles said. "In moments like these, right before a battle, when things were tense, he had a way of lightening the mood. Of making the others laugh, to forget their worries and remember their blessings, at least for a little while. I was always annoyed by it at the time. I never realized how important those moments were. How important he was to our group, until he was gone. There's so much that I wish I would have said to him now."

Mr. Terrific cleared his throat, trying to make it sound nonchalant as he gathered his emotions. "I…didn't know him very well," he said. "But the few conversations we had were mostly about your group. He cared about you all very much, and he was worried about you. I think…that he knew how much you all cared about him, and it meant a lot to him."

Giles nodded. "Still, for Buffy and Willow especially, with so much left unsaid, it's difficult for them."

"There's always hope, Mr. Giles," Terrific said. "I know that my arrival here heralded some dark events, but more than anything I wanted to bring you all hope. Xander could still be alive."

"Maybe," Giles said. "But hope can be a dangerous thing, Mr. Terrific. To see those hopes dashed again, I don't think I could bare it."

"I'll do everything in my power to make sure that that doesn't happen," Terrific said.

Giles offered him a sad smile. "I know that you will," he said. But it was clear that he wasn't getting his hopes up. Xander realized that Buffy and Willow weren't the only ones who were strongly affected by his 'death', and he wondered again if lying to them to protect them from the Initiative really was the lesser of two evils.

"Did everyone ante?" Riley asked. Giles and Terrific each tossed a chip into the pot. The three of them looked at their new cards. "I'll bet ten," Riley said, tossing another chip in.

"I'm in," Giles said.

"I'll raise another ten," Terrific said, pushing his chips in.

Riley looked at his cards and bit his lower lip. He tossed in another ten dollar chip and followed it with two more. "I'll raise twenty."

"Fold," Giles said, laying down his cards.

Terrific looked at Riley and smiled. "Call," he said, putting his own chips in. "Let's see what you've got."

Riley frowned and his laid his cards down face up. "Pair of deuces," he said.

Terrific laid down his own cards. "Three of a kind," he said, showing two tens and one of the wild jacks. He then swept the chips from the pit to himself and started restacking them.

"How did you know I was bluffing?" Riley asked.

Terrific seemed to mull it over. "Call it intuition, or instinct. Or maybe it's the T-Sphere that I have floating behind you, looking at your cards." Riley whirled around in surprise, but there was nothing behind him. Terrific laughed. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."

Giles laughed too. Riley looked annoyed for a moment but eventually cracked a smile. It was strange, the normalcy of it all. These three men sitting and playing cards, laughing and joking around, like it was just another Friday night. But each of them was dealing with their own pain and their own fear about what lay ahead. Even for Mr. Terrific, whose enhanced brain could calculate the odds of any situation, the future was still uncertain.

888888888888

A few nights later, Buffy and Willow were in their dorm room when Buffy's phone rang. It was Riley.

"Buffy, Adam is making his move tonight."

"Where are you?"

"I'm heading back to town. I went back to the cave where Forrest was killed, I was trying to find Adam's base of operations."

"What?! Why would you go there alone?"

"Adam found me, he thinks I still have the behavior mod chip, I let him think that he was in control of me. He told me about Professor Walsh's plan to create a master race of soldiers. She was going to turn us all into versions of Adam. I slipped away when he wasn't looking. We have to go in now, we don't have much time."

"Okay, meet us at Lowell house, we'll make our entry there. And be careful."

"I will."

They hung up and Buffy looked to Willow who was already standing, having heard her side of the conversation. "It's on, get your stuff for the spell. You call Mr. Terrific and I'll call Giles."

"Are you ready for this, Buffy?" Willow asked.

"I'm ready. Adam's reign of terror ends tonight."

Ten minutes later the five of them were gathered in what was Riley and Forrest's room in Lowell house.

"The enjoining spell is powerful enough to defeat Adam," Giles said. "But it's dangerous. We'll be invoking magics that I normally wouldn't recommend. We'll need someplace quite for the spell, but someplace that's near Adam."

"I know where he is," Riley said. "I can lead you there."

"Everyone get ready," Buffy said. "We're not sneaking in this time, we're going in hard." She lashed out with her foot, kicking the mirror that hid the elevator down to the underground base and breaking it.

"How are we going to get down?" Willow asked.

"Leave that to me," Terrific said, his T-Spheres floating up behind him.

Each sphere flattened into a disc and ferried them down the shaft one by one. Once at the bottom, they pried the elevator doors open, and were met with a bevy of armed soldiers, all pointing guns at them.

"Maybe sneaking in wouldn't have been such a bad idea," Terrific said.

"Hands up, all of you!" one of them shouted.

"Listen to me, you're all in danger," Buffy started. "Adam is planning an attack…"

"Quiet! Step out of the shaft, over here, all of you, now!" Buffy rolled her eyes in annoyance but the group complied. "What are you supposed to be?" the soldier asked when he spotted Mr. Terrific.

"Me? I'm a magician, I do kids' parties. Want to see a trick?" One of his T-Sphere's briefly floated into view. Buffy looked at him and shook her head. The sphere lowered back down again behind his back where the soldiers couldn't see them.

"I can't believe I'm going to say this," Buffy said. "But take us to your leader."

One of the soldiers spoke into his radio for a moment before nodding to the others. The group was led through the base and to a control room, where an older man in a colonel's uniform stood.

"Who are you people, what are you doing here?" the Colonel asked.

"You must be new," Terrific said. "I suggest you ask your people, Colonel. This little operation of yours has been keeping tabs on our group for several months now. Covert surveillance, kidnapping, attempted murder, all crimes courtesy of Maggie Walsh's personal vendetta."

"Maggie Walsh was a lunatic, and she's no longer in charge here."

"We're well aware of that, Colonel," Terrific said.

"You have to listen to me, Adam is planning an attack from within this compound, your people are in danger. He has a secret lab…"

"I don't need you people to tell me how to protect my base or my men."

"She's telling the truth, Colonel," Riley spoke up. "I've seen the lab myself."

"Finn, did you bring these people here?" Riley just nodded. "Do you realize what the punishment is for exposing a covert operation to civilians? You'll be court martialed. Worse, you'll go to prison for this. You've betrayed your country and your comrades."

"I'm trying to save my comrades, Sir!" Riley barked. "If Adam succeeds in his plan, none of us will survive. The fate of the world is at stake."

The Colonel opened his mouth to reply but before he could, the lights went out, plunging the room in darkness. A moment later, emergency lights came on. "What happened?" the Colonel asked one of his people seated at the computer console in the room.

"I'm not sure, Sir. Backup generators aren't responding. The compound is sealed Sir, we're locked in." A moment later, a loud metal clang could be heard echoing through the compound.

"What was that?" the Colonel asked.

"If I'm not mistaken, that was the sound of all of the cell doors on the detention level being opened," Mr. Terrific said. A moment later, screams could be heard.

"You have to let us go," Buffy said.

"You aren't going anywhere, young lady," the Colonel answered. "You and this traveling freak show are under arrest. You and you," he said, pointing to two of his men. "Stay here and watch them, the rest of you come with me to the armory."

The Colonel and the others filed out of the room, closing the door behind them. Buffy threw up her hands. "Unbelievable!"

"Never underestimate the ability of bureaucracy and ego to stand in the way of common sense," Terrific said.

"Mr. T, why don't you show us that magic trick now?" Buffy asked.

"Gladly," Terrific responded. In an instant he used the interface in his mask to command two of his T-Spheres toward the two soldiers that were guarding them. The two barely had time to register what they were looking at when a blue energy bolt erupted from each of them, striking the soldiers and stunning them unconscious. The two collapsed on the deck without making a sound. "Ta-da!" Terrific remarked mockingly.

Willow sat down at the computer console and punched up the cameras from inside the base. What they saw was a bloodbath, total carnage. Demons were ripping through the soldiers and staff of the Initiative like tissue paper. "Oh my god," she said, looking like she was about to be sick.

"We need to find a place close to Adam's lab for the spell, someplace out of the way," Giles said. "Can you bring up a schematic or something?"

A few more taps and she brought up a blueprint for the compound. "There, those air ducts," Buffy said. "They don't lead to anything. That must be it, you guys can setup there."

"If we can even get there," Giles said, looking at the camera footage again of the slaughter that was taking place.

Riley's eyes hadn't left the screens since they came up, his fists clenched in rage. "We have to do something, we have to help them, they're being massacred."

"You leave that to me, Cornfed," Terrific said. "We have to stick to the plan, without the enjoining spell Buffy can't defeat Adam, and if we don't stop him now it won't matter how many people we save." Riley looked unsure, it was clear that every instinct he had was telling him to grab a weapon and run out there to save his comrades. "Soldier," Terrific said. Riley turned and looked now. "We all have a job here, I'll do mine. I'll get these people out. But you have to do your job, you have to give Buffy what you have in here," he said, touching the other man's chest. "The heart of a soldier, so she can put an end to this once and for all. Are you ready?"

Riley nodded and picked up his rifle. "Let's do this," he said, heading for the door. "Buffy and I will take point, Giles and Willow stay in the middle, Mr. Terrific will bring up the rear. Be fast and stay safe." The others nodded in agreement and followed Buffy and Riley out of the Control Room.

The floor of the compound was a war zone. All manner of demons were attacking everyone in sight, people were running and screaming. Some soldiers were trying to fight them off but they weren't faring very well. Mr. Terrific sent his T-Spheres out, one to look ahead, another behind, and the third flew up to give him a bird's eye view of the action. First priority was to get Buffy and the others to Room 314, someplace close by where they could do the enjoining spell. After that, he could work on getting as many people out as he could. Hopefully while keeping the demons inside, or taking out as many as he could.

Terrific used the T-Sphere in the lead to keep the path clear. Along with Riley and his pulse rifle, they fired on anything that got too close. Buffy took out anything that they missed, dispatching it quickly. And Terrific used the other two spheres to watch for unseen threats and make sure they weren't attacked from behind or ambushed. They moved quickly and efficiently through the compound, until they got to Room 314.

"Barricade this door behind me," Buffy said.

"I still don't like you going in alone," Willow said.

"I won't be alone," Buffy said. "Willow, I know how hard these past few months have been for us all, especially for you. But I want you to know that I wouldn't have been able to get through five seconds of it without you. You, Giles and Xander will always be with me, in here," she said, pointing to her heart. "With or without this spell. That's what makes me a great slayer."

Willow felt tears come to her eyes and she hugged her friend. "I won't let you down, Buffy," she said.

"You never do," Buffy returned. She exchanged silent looks with Giles and Riley, and even gave a thankful nod to Mr. Terrific before she went through the door and Willow barricaded it behind her.

"Supply closet," Terrific said, indicating a nearby door. "You can do the spell from there. Good luck."

Giles, Willow and Riley went into the small room and started preparing for the spell. "And to you as well," Giles said to Terrific with a nod. The closet door closed, and Xander was now on his own.

His job now was to engage the demons and get as many people to safety as he could. With his T-Spheres feeding him data through the heads up display that was being projected directly onto his cornea, he was splitting his focus four ways. His enhanced brain was churning, figuring out probabilities, analyzing scenarios, calculating his best odds to save the most people. With main power offline, the base was on lockdown to prevent a security breach. His first goal would be to interface with the Initiative computer system to try and undo whatever Adam had done to lock out the system. He sent his first sphere to find a computer to hack into.

The second sphere remained overhead, showing him a big picture view of the battle. He could see individual skirmishes, prioritize who needed the most immediate assistance and respond accordingly. The third T-Sphere stayed with him, he used it to watch his own back and to help him with the demons he would encounter with a well-timed energy blast or electric shock. He calculated the most efficient path and then waded into the fray.

A large purple demon with scaly skin was chasing a woman in a lab coat who was screaming, Terrific ran into the thing with his shoulder and knocked the creature down. An energy blast from his T-Sphere to the thing's head killed it. Using the T-Spheres in disc form to decapitate would be more efficient, but with so many innocents around he didn't want to chance an accident. He turned to the woman in the lab coat. "Emergency exits?" he asked.

She was breathing heavy, still in shock, but she understood what he was asking and shook her head. "You need to use a security badge to use them but it's not working, I tried! We all tried!"

Terrific checked the display from the first T-Sphere, which had already found a terminal and was interfacing with the system. He needed to find the program that Adam had used and disable it. Lines of code flew by on the screen and his brain processed them just as fast, until finally he found it. The offending lines of code were embedded in the system, he didn't have time to go through and find them all. He would have to write an algorithm in the program to do it for him. Ten seconds later the algorithm was written and running. "The lockout should be lifted in five minutes, find an exit," he said, leaving the confused woman behind.

He moved from demon to demon in the most efficient way possible, dealing blows with his fists and his feet, disabling their attacks long enough for his T-Sphere to finish them. He picked up a discarded energy rifle along the way and used it to stun some of the creatures, but many of them seemed immune to its effects, which explained why the soldiers weren't faring so well. Adam had chosen his army well. The armory was still locked he heard one of them shout, another byproduct of Adam's program. He made an adjustment to his program to unlock it, but it would take minutes to complete. A lot could happen in a few minutes.

Terrific came across a small group of soldiers firing their stun rifles on three hairy ape-like demons who didn't seem to be feeling anything other than annoyance by the energy pulses. Terrific started engaging them in hand to hand. He flipped one of the things onto its back and was trading punches with another. "If you guys have any…knives or bladed weapons…I would pull them out now!" he called out to the soldiers between blows. One of the creatures grabbed Mr. Terrific's jacket to try and pull him toward him, but as soon as he touched it he pulled his claws away and yelped, as though burned. One of the magical wards on the jacket must have reacted, Terrific thought and he turned. Snatching his T-Sphere from the air he grabbed the creature by the throat and shoved it into his mouth. "Suck on this you walking hair clog!" A moment later the thing's head exploded in a shower of blue light, and the T-Sphere floated back behind him.

Next to Terrific, one of the soldiers had a combat knife and he plunged it into the neck of the third demon. "Are there any medics down here?" Terrific asked.

The soldier nodded. "We're taking as many wounded as we can to the infirmary, there are medics there."

"No, you have to get them out," Terrific said. "Tell the medics to get as many people out as they can, through the emergency exits where the demons can't follow."

"The exits don't work."

Terrific checked on the display from the first T-Sphere, still interfaced with the Initiative computer. "They do now. The Armory is unlocked too, so if you guys have anything in there with more firepower then these glorified Tasers, I would go get it."

"Who the hell are you?" the soldier asked.

Terrific shrugged. "Just a guy who really hates an unfair fight," he said before moving onto the next melee.

Elsewhere in the compound, Buffy was making her way through Adam's secret lab. She thought that she was prepared for anything, but what she saw next still surprised her. It was Professor Walsh and one of the other Initiative scientists, shuffling lifelessly through the room, carrying out menial tasks. Thick plastic tubes carrying some kind of liquid were sticking out of their necks. "Professor Walsh," Buffy spoke, unsure.

"She can't answer you," another voice spoke. "They're just walking corpses, their brains were too degraded to be programmed with anything other than simple jobs." The owner of the voice stepped out of the shadows, revealing himself. "I however, have never been more alive."

"Forrest," Buffy said, in shock. The formerly dead Initiative soldier was more demon than man now, his head and neck covered in thick yellow scales. There were small metal devices connected to his temples, giving him a Frankenstein's monster kind of look. "What did he do to you?"

"The same thing that he's going to do to you," Forrest said. Then he attacked.

Buffy dodged the first two swings from Forrest's powerful, demonic arms. But the third caught her face and sent her flying back into a set of metal shelves. He was on top of her in an instant, and he was incredibly strong. Buffy delivered a kick to his midsection, knocking him off of her. She leapt to her feet and continued punching and kicking him, but the blows seemed to have little effect. He caught her wrist and pulled her arm back, smiling. Then he threw a punch of his own to her sternum, sending her flying back again.

"What do you think of the upgrades?" he taunted as he stood over her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her up, spinning her around he wrapped his arm around her throat from behind, holding her in place. Buffy could see Professor Walsh walking toward her with a medical saw. "You shouldn't have interfered," Forrest said. "Riley was my best friend, and you poisoned him against me, against all of us!"

Buffy wanted to argue that the Initiative was who was poisoning them, but she couldn't breathe enough to talk. She had her hands wrapped around Forrest's arm, but she couldn't pry it free. Walsh was getting closer and closer with the saw.

"Once you're dead, Adam will remake you to serve him. And then he'll make you kill your friends and do the same to them."

But in that moment, while Buffy thought of how she could save her friends, they were saving her. The enjoining spell was being cast, and Buffy could feel a surge of power enter into her. More than just power though, it was knowledge, wisdom, understanding, instinct. She was calm now. She knew what she had to do, and she knew exactly how she was going to do it.

Lashing out with her foot, she kicked the medical saw out of Walsh's hands. And with another kick, she severed the tubes that were connected to her neck, causing Walsh to drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes. She reached behind her and wrapped her hands around Forrest's neck and flipped him forward over her and flat onto his back on the ground. Kneeling down, she wrapped her arms around his head and twisted, snapping his neck. She stood and made her way further into the lab, where she knew that Adam was waiting.

She found him sitting behind a console of closed circuit monitors, watching the carnage unfold around him. He wore an expression of displeasure, which Buffy took as a good sign. "Disappointing," he said. "But not wholly unexpected. If anyone could appreciate what I'm trying to do, I would think it would be him. The two of you could have been powerful allies, but you chose to stand against me. No matter, you're only prolonging the inevitable. You will fail in the end. I cannot be stopped."

"Do you have any idea how many times I've heard that before?" Buffy asked.

Adam stood from where he was sitting and walked around the bank of monitors. He raised his arm and the three foot bone skewer that he had used to kill Professor Walsh extended out from under his wrist. "You'll never hear it again," he said, before he thrust himself forward and attacked.

Buffy ducked under the skewer, then reached up and grabbed it, snapping it off. She turned and kicked Adam back, sending him staggering across the small room. Buffy took up a fighting stance, waiting for the man/machine/demon hybrid to make his next move. She was surprised when she saw his left arm change into a Gatling gun and then open fire.

Buffy dived behind a nearby console, protecting herself from the incoming spray of bullets. She could feel the energies from the enjoining spell increasing, reaching its peak. Time seemed to slow down as everything became clear. The bullets peppered the console, sending up a shower of sparks until finally it exploded. When the smoke cleared, Buffy stood from the rubble, her eyes glowing orange. She opened her mouth and began speaking in Sumerian.

Adam cocked his head. "Curious," he said. Raising the gun he opened fire on Buffy again, sending a volley of bullets toward her. Buffy raised her hand, and the bullets stopped inches from her. They hung in mid-air for a moment before dissolving into nothing. Adam looked more than displeased now. He looked concerned.

Buffy closed the distance between them in a blink. Telepathically she disabled his weaponry before she started pummeling him, raining down punches and kicks. Adam tried to fight back but Buffy was too fast, none of his blows came close. He was afraid now, for the first time in his existence. He was against the wall now, powerless to stop what was happening to him. Unable to understand it. "What…what is this power?" he asked feebly.

Buffy looked down at him, almost with pity. "You abandoned your humanity because you thought it was weak. You'll never grasp the source of my power because you'll never understand what it really means to be human. Our true strength comes from each other, from friendship. And thanks to one of those friends who downloaded your blueprints before he escaped from here, I know exactly where the source of your power is." And with that, Buffy plunged her hand into Adam's chest and ripped out his uranium power supply. The device levitated above Buffy's hand for a moment before dissolving into nothing. Adam was dead.

Buffy rushed back the way she came out of Adam's lab and back into the main compound. She could feel the spell starting to wear off. She broke down the door that led into the lab and found Willow, Giles and Riley exiting the supply closet, all looking extremely tired. "Come on, we have to get out of here," Buffy said. "Where's Mr. Terrific?"

As if on cue, she spotted his T-Sphere's floating overhead. The group looked and saw Terrific fighting hand to hand with a demon, delivering a killing blow with a combat knife that he was holding. He rushed over to the group when he saw them. "Almost everyone is out," he told them. "The casualties were light, considering. It could have been a lot worse. There are still some wounded in the infirmary that need help getting out, that should be it."

"Then let's go," Buffy said.

"You guys go on ahead, get the rest of these people out. I have one more thing that I have to take care of," Terrific said, turning to head back into the base.

"Mr. Terrific, wait!" Willow called out. He turned.

"We stand a much better chance if we stick together," Giles said.

"I'll be fine, don't worry about me," Terrific said. "Just remember what I said, Mr. Giles. There's always hope. It's a good thing, maybe the best of things. Don't let it die." And with that, he ran back into the base and disappeared around a corner.

Willow started to go after him again when Buffy stopped her. "We have to go," she said. "He made his choice." Willow nodded solemnly.

The group made their way to the infirmary and helped get the rest of the survivors out of the base. Buffy couldn't help but think about what Mr. Terrific had said, it could have been a lot worse. They won, they stopped Adam, and they had done it together. She realized now how import her friends were to her, and she regretted more than anything that one friend in particular wasn't there with them to share in that victory.

888888888888

The next day, the group minus Mr. Terrific was gathered at Giles' apartment, talking about the night before.

"I received a call this morning from Washington," Riley said, sitting on the couch next to Buffy and holding her hand. "The Army is shutting down the Initiative project permanently, and disavowing any knowledge of it. They're going to fill the base with concrete to destroy any evidence that it ever existed. The surviving soldiers are to report to Washington next week to be debriefed and then reassigned." Buffy sat up and looked at him with a surprised expression. "Don't worry, I'm not leaving Sunnydale," Riley said, patting her hand. "I don't care what they say."

"What about your career?" Willow asked.

Riley just shook his head. "After what happened with the Initiative, I don't care about that anymore," he said sadly.

Buffy squeezed his hand. "I can't believe they're going to just sweep it all under the rug like it never even happened," she said.

"Maybe it's for the best," Giles said. "They learned an important lesson here. That there are some things that are better left alone, at least as far as they're concerned. I hope that it's a lesson they take to heart, lest another Adam be created."

"I hope so, too," Riley said.

"What do you think happened to Mr. Terrific?" Willow asked the room. "Do you think…do you think he's okay?"

"I'm sure that he persevered," Giles said. "He's an extremely capable fighter, as we witnessed last night."

"I don't think we'll see him again," Buffy said. "He had a personal vendetta against the Initiative, now that they're gone he doesn't have a reason to stay. He's probably back in Metropolis by now."

"I hope we do see him again," Riley said. "So I can thank him. He saved a lot of lives last night."

"I don't know," Willow said. "Maybe in the beginning this was just about revenge for him, but I think that he really cares about us. I think he'll stay. That is, if he's even still alive."

At that moment, as if summoned by Willow's pondering, a T-Sphere floated into the living room through the open window. It stopped and projected and full size hologram of Mr. Terrific. "Alive and well, thank you Willow for your concern. And thank you Buffy for that vote of confidence, but I don't intend to go anywhere for a while."

"Spying on us again?" Buffy asked in a snarky voice.

"Just happened to overhear," Terrific defended.

"What happened last night, why did you run back in after we got everyone out?" Willow asked.

"The Initiative kept the holding cells for their human subjects in a separate area, away from the demons. I was hoping that they were far enough away from the action to be protected, I wanted to check if there was anyone there."

"Xander," Willow said. "You went back for Xander." She started to shake, her face an expression of terror. This was it, this was the moment of truth. She had held onto the hope that Xander could still be alive ever since Mr. Terrific had told them that he had been kidnapped and held by the Initiative. The hope alone had pulled her through, and now that reality had come back, she was terrified. If he really was gone this time, there would be nothing left to hold onto, and she didn't think that she could go through it again.

"I didn't want to say anything last night," Mr. Terrific said. "I didn't know what I was going to find."

"So why are you bringing it up now," Buffy bit. If he really was dead, maybe it was better not to know, she thought. Giles, who had been standing next to the couch polishing his glasses, returned them to his face and laid a reassuring hand on Buffy's shoulder.

Mr. Terrific just smiled. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Willow jumped at the sound as if it were a gunshot. Her hands went immediately to her face as the tears started to come.

"I should go," Terrific said, offering a wave goodbye. "I'll see you guys around. Take care of yourselves." The hologram winked off and the T-Sphere flew back out the window.

The group looked at each other, and then Giles made his way to the door. Hope was a funny thing, he thought. Always tinged with fear and uncertainty. But it could also see you through the darkest of times, if you had the conviction to believe in it. Maybe Mr. Terrific had been right. Maybe it was the best of things.

The others all stood, Buffy and Willow clinging to each other like they were both afraid the other was going to fall down at any moment. Giles opened the door, and standing there on the doorstep wearing a white tee-shirt and a pair of fatigue pants that looked too big on him and no shoes, was Xander. He looked tired and a little confused, but otherwise uninjured.

"Hey guys," he said. "Long time no see."

Buffy and Willow both burst into tears, rushing forward they nearly tackled him in a hug. For a while, nobody said anything. They just clung to each other like they were afraid they were going to disappear. Giles reached over and gave Xander's shoulder a squeeze, offering him a genuine smile. Xander smiled back.

For a moment, nothing else mattered. All the pain and uncertainty was gone. He knew that there would be questions, and he knew that he would have to continue lying to them, but it was the best option that he could see. There would be more threats in Sunnydale and beyond, threats that Mr. Terrific would have to face, both with his friends and without. Buffy and Willow would never be able to accept him putting himself in danger like that, and he couldn't put them through it again, he wouldn't. So Xander would stay Xander, forever their friend and confidant, loyal and true. And when things got rough, Mr. Terrific would return.

But for now, Xander was just content being himself again. He smiled contently as he squeezed his best friends tightly. "It's good to be home."

The End.

Or is it?

Yeah, probably.


End file.
